164 S.W.2d 278 | Mo. | 1942
Lead Opinion
This cause was certified here by the Kansas City Court of Appeals. It involves an application to the State Social Security Commission for old age assistance. Ch. 52, Art. 1, R.S. 1939. See Nichols v. State Social Security Commission (Mo. App.), 156 S.W.2d 760, where the facts are detailed. The circuit court found the award of the Commission, which denied assistance, "unreasonable, arbitrary and against the purpose and spirit of the law" and remanded the cause for further consideration. The Commission appealed. A majority of the Court of Appeals did not concur in the opinion prepared and considered the award of the Commission should be affirmed.
The Social Security Act of 1937 (Laws 1937, p. 467) granted old age assistance, in so far as material to a determination of the instant case, to an aged person not having "sufficient income or other resources to provide a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health, and is therefore without adequate means of support" (Ibid., Sec. 12; see now Sec. 9407, R.S. 1939); and provided that "the amount of benefits . . . shall be determined with due regard to resources and necessary expenditures of the individual . . ." [Ibid., Sec. 11.] The act was construed as conferring assistance upon otherwise qualified persons although they were actually receiving "a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health" from some *1152
child or other relative. Price v. State Social Security Comm.,
"(6) has earning capacity, income, or resources, whether such income or resources is received from some other person or persons, gifts or otherwise, sufficient to meet his needs for a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health." [Laws 1939, p. 739; Sec. 9406, R.S. 1939.] This resulted in denying assistance to those otherwise entitled thereto who received gratuities enabling them to live in decency and health. Howlett v. Social Security Comm.,
[1] The instant case was presented to the Commission on September 12, 1940, on the theory that applicant, unless he was receiving gratuities which enabled him to live in decency and health, was qualified to receive old age assistance. The Commission's award read: ". . . The State Social Security Commission finds and awards: That the claimant has income, resources, support and maintenance to provide a reasonable subsistence compatible with decency and health and is not found to be in need . . ." Whenever the facts present a situation calling for the application of a specific provision of the law, it would be better and we think in accord with the legislative intent for the Commission, a statutory body, to so word the award as to remove all doubt of the ground or grounds upon which it is entered that it may be intelligently reviewed [280] by the courts under Sec. 9411, R.S. 1939. If the instant award might permit of a construction that applicant had sufficient income et cetera in his own right, we, viewing it in the light of the sole controverted issue presented for determination, conclude assistance was denied on the ground applicant was receiving gratuities enabling him to live in decency and health.
[2] Applicant had been living for ten years or more with his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. David A. Cooper. He testified they had been and were now "taking care of" and "supporting" him. Mrs. Cooper testified she and her husband furnished applicant with the "necessities of life" out of her husband's wages, and: "Q. And you are now supporting him and providing him with the necessities *1153
of life? A. Sure." Mr. Cooper testified that his salary was $1320 a year, less three and one-half per cent retirement fee, approximately $106 a month; that he was furnishing applicant with the "necessities of life," and: "Q. From your present salary you have been able to meet your current living expenses and provide a reasonable living for yourself and your wife and father-in-law, have you not? A. Yes, sir; we haven't suffered." Such testimony is in part in the nature of conclusions. Fact finding administrative bodies, charged with the impartial administration of the law entrusted to them, should base awards on actual facts adduced rather than the conclusions of witnesses invading the province of such bodies in the determination of their ultimate ruling. That one is considered to know the law is a fiction for the advancement of justice. A witness is neither the judge nor the court. He may be ignorant of the precise legal consequences of the true facts; his stated conclusion may be wholly at war with the resulting legal situation; and his ignorance of the law should not be permitted to become the law of the case where his factual testimony discloses a legal situation contrary to his conclusion. We think it was not necessarily the intention of the Legislature to penalize dutiful children, having a sense of pride of family, and sanction sacrifices by them to the extent of depriving themselves of needed food, shelter, medical attention or other necessities of life while permitting children, lacking in pride of family and filial affection, to refuse, under practically similar situations, to make any sacrifices and saddle the burden of supporting their indigent parents upon the public. We understand the Commission so administers the law. [Consult Howlett v. Social Security Comm.,
[3] As might be expected from the foregoing testimony of the witnesses there was no evidence that applicant was in need of the ncessities of life, a condition attached to a grant of old age assistance. [Sec. 9406, supra.] Webster's New International Dictionary (2 Ed., 1935), defines "need": "a A condition requiring supply or relief, urgent exigency . . . c Want of the means of subsistence; poverty; indigence; destitution." And "needy": "Distressed by want of the means of living; poverty-stricken." Moore v. State Social Security Comm.,
The judgment of the circuit court is reversed and the cause remanded with directions to sustain the award of the Commission.Westhues and Barrett, CC., concur.
Addendum
The foregoing opinion by BOHLING, C., is adopted as the opinion of the court. Tipton, P.J., and Leedy, J., concur; Ellison,J., concurs in result.